Patient blacklisting threat 'symptomatic' of national wait time woes

Mon 9 Dec 2013, 2:37 PM AEDT

The South Australia's Rural Doctors Association says the potential blacklisting of some patients at a country health practice should bring into focus the damaging effects of long waiting times for appointments.

Port Lincoln's Boston Bay Family Health Practice says it has been getting unwarranted Facebook criticism from some patients over long waiting times.

Patients will be asked to find medical help elsewhere if the posts are not removed.

The association's president, Dr Scott Lewis, says it is symbolic of one of the biggest issues facing country health.

"Certainly in Port Lincoln at the moment they are several GPs short on what they really do require as far as the population goes, so I think it's symptomatic of something we're seeing around the nation really - waiting times increasing and people getting upset about that," he said.

"The take-home message we get out of all of this is to really pay attention to the GP workforce and make sure good efforts still continue to recruit GPs into areas of need and areas of need are not necessarily obvious, they can be the larger areas where GPs are underserviced."